A SAM loan, or Shared Appreciation Loan, is a gap loan with an equity component to it. This means that your gap lender, or SAM lender, will get a piece of the equity you earn with the sale of your real estate property. This equity sharing typically has a broad range all the way up to 60 percent or more.
The reason for this is that your gap lender wants to take as much risk out of the loan he's making to you, and the way to do this using a SAM loan is through sharing in the sale price of any property that you sell. Remember, your SAM lender usually has a 2nd lien, so he carries much higher risk of losing his money if you default on any of the loans tied to the property.
So while it may seem like a lot, in many cases, if you don't secure gap funding, you can't eve make a deal.